Gains and Gaps: Changing Inequality in U.S. College Entry and Completion

We describe changes over time in inequality in postsecondary education using nearly seventy years of data from the U.S. Census and the 1979 and 1997 National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth. We find growing gaps between children from high- and low-income families in college entry, persistence, and graduation. Rates of college completion increased by only four percentage points for low-income cohorts born around 1980 relative to cohorts born in the early 1960s, but by 18 percentage points for corresponding cohorts who grew up in high-income families. Among men, inequality in educational attainment has increased slightly since the early 1980s. But among women, inequality in educational attainment has risen sharply, driven by increases in the education of the daughters of high-income parents. Sex differences in educational attainment, which were small or nonexistent thirty years ago, are now substantial, with women outpacing men in every demographic group. The female advantage in educational attainment is largest in the top quartile of the income distribution. These sex differences present a formidable challenge to standard explanations for rising inequality in educational attainment.

The Impact of U.S. Family Planning Programs on Fertility and Mortality: Evidence from the War on Poverty and Title X

Over forty years ago, the U.S. government adopted a policy of funding domestic family planning services, and the effects of these programs have been debated ever since. Within an event-study framework, I exploit community-level variation in the timing of federal grants for family planning services under the Economic Opportunity Act (1965 to 1974) and Title X (1970 to 1980) to evaluate their impact. The results provide robust evidence that federal family planning grants reduced birth rates in funded communities by four percent within six years. I find no evidence that family planning grants reduced maternal or infant mortality rates

Essays on Women’s Economic Advancement in the Twentieth Century United States: Dissertation Summary

The integration of women into formal labor markets was one of the most salient changes of the twentieth century. The female century, in the words of The Economist (1999), witnessed an extraordinary transformation of women\u27s opportunities and outcomes both in and outside the household. My dissertation explores both the causes and consequences of women\u27s moves from home to the labor market in the United States during three episodes of rapid change

Increasing Financial Access to Contraception for Low-Income Americans

Access to contraception is fundamental to reproductive autonomy and economic mobility for parents and their children. Today in the U.S., the cost of contraception severely limits access for those without health insurance. Although the Affordable Care Act eliminated cost-sharing for contraception for those with health insurance, substantial cost-sharing remains for uninsured individuals who seek care through Title X—a national family planning program that offers patient-centered, subsidized contraception and reproductive health services to low-income individuals. I propose two changes to Title X to increase the affordability of contraception for uninsured Americans: (1) make contraceptives free for low-income clients through a change to the guidelines issued by the Office of Population Affairs and Health and Human Services and (2) increase congressional  appropriations for the Title X program to fund this change in guidelines. Similar to the Affordable Care Act's elimination of cost-sharing for contraception for Americans with health insurance, this proposal eliminates cost-sharing requirements for contraception for uninsured, low-income Americans through the Title X program. This policy proposal is supported by highly relevant evidence from a randomized control trial conducted at Title X providers. Eliminating costsharing for contraception through Title X would increase use of preferred contraceptive methods; reduce pregnancies that are mistimed or not desired, including those ending in abortion; and generate substantial enough savings in other government spending that the program would more than pay for itself

"Momma's Got the Pill": How Anthony Comstock and Griswold v. Connecticut Shaped U.S. Childbearing

The 1960s ushered in a new era in U.S. demographic history characterized by significantly lower fertility rates and smaller family sizes. What catalyzed these changes remains a matter of considerable debate. This paper exploits idiosyncratic variation in the language of “Comstock” statutes, enacted in the late 1800s, to quantify the role of the birth control pill in this transition. Almost fifty years after the contraceptive pill appeared on the U.S. market, this analysis provides new evidence that it accelerated the post-1960 decline in marital fertility.

Reexamining the Impact of Family Planning Programs on U.S. Fertility: Evidence from the War on Poverty and the Early Years of Title X

Almost 50 years after domestic U.S. family planning programs began, their effects on childbearing remain controversial. Using the county-level roll-out of these programs from 1964 to 1973, this paper reevaluates their shorter- and longer-term effects on U.S. fertility rates. I find that the introduction of family planning is associated with significant and persistent reductions in fertility driven both by falling completed childbearing and childbearing delay. Although federally-funded family planning accounted for a small portion of the post-baby boom U.S. fertility decline, the estimates imply that they reduced childbearing among poor women by 21 to 29 percent.

Community Health Centers have reduced mortality rates of older Americans at significantly lower cost than Medicare

Federally-funded Community Health Centers (CHCs) today provide primary care and medication on a sliding pay scale to more than 20 million Americans. In new research, Martha Bailey and Andrew Goodman-Bacon show CHCs had large effects on health at relatively modest costs. The establishment of this program in the 1960s resulted in sharp and persistent reductions in age-adjusted mortality rates–effects concentrated among the most disadvantaged Americans. Reductions in mortality rates through this expansion cost one third to one eighth what the same mortality reduction cost through Medicare. These findings bode well for the current expansion of the CHC program under the Affordable Care Act

Federally funded family planning programs in the United States reduce poverty in childhood and, decades later, in adulthood

The Affordable Care Act’s contraceptive mandate has been one of the most hotly debated segments of the already controversial law, but it is by no means the first time the federal government has become involved in family planning. Johannes Norling, Martha J. Bailey, and Olga Malkova examine how federally funded family planning programs begun in the 1960s and 1970s affected childhood and adult poverty rates. They find that parents’ access to affordable contraception is associated with lower poverty rates for their offspring, both during childhood and later in life

Some Effects of Faculty Status on Supervision in Academic Libraries

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